ion rides a horse and jumps through hoops, and lands on the
back of the horse, and jumps on a staging and lets the horse go around
the ring, and then jumps on again. The horse is blindfolded, so he don't
know it is a lion that jumps on his back, but thinks it is a man.

The tigers ride bicycles, and the leopards jump about wherever the
trainer tells them to; a monkey acts as clown, and a little elephant
runs a make-believe automobile. That act alone is worth the price of
admission.

Well, the regular trainer went to Coney Island, and got drunk, and we
either had to cut out that performance, or give back the money, and the
manager was wailing about it, 'cause nothing makes a circus man wail
like giving back good money. Then pa said he would save the day by
taking charge of the animal act. He said he had watched it every day,
and knew how to do it, and he could dress up in the clothes of the
regular trainer, and the animals wouldn't know the difference. Gee, but
I was scared to have pa try to run that animal show, and I think
everyone in the show believed it would be pa's finish. I felt like an
orphan when pa came out of the dressing-room with the trainer's clothes
on, though pa's stomach was so big you would think a blindfolded horse
would know pa was no trainer.

Well, pa went in the round cage made of bar iron, and motioned to the
attendants to send the animals into the cage through the chute from the
animal quarters. The first to come were two tigers that were to ride
velocipedes. I trembled for pa when they went in and waved their tails
and looked at pa as much as to say: "O, we won't do a thing to you."
They actually looked at each other and winked; but pa motioned to the
velocipedes, and looked fierce, and when they hesitated about getting
on, pa said: "You won't, won't you," and he took a club filled with lead
and started for the biggest tiger. He hesitated a moment, and then he
jumped on the machine, and the other followed, and they raced around,
and then pa made them get off and jump hurdles. Finally he motioned to a
shelf for them to jump up onto, and when they hesitated he kicked one in
the slats, and hit the other with the club, and they went up on that
shelf too quick, but they stayed there and snarled at pa, and I was
afraid they would jump on him when his back was turned.

Then they brought in the blind horse and the lion, and the lion was onto
pa, and he struck right off. He got up on the pedestal from